Wipeout Pulse

Jan 3, 2008

While you were opening gifts and drinking yourself into oblivion, we spent the holiday break burning through a recent build of Wipeout Pulse for PSP, which wraps a mighty single-player campaign around the core of 2005's brilliant Wipeout Pure and adds much-desired online play. And though Europe's been rocking the final game since before Christmas, we have some new impressions of what to expect from the North American release this spring.

Little about the actual hovercraft racing experience has changed since Wipeout Pure, which offered up the best-yet iteration of Sony's now 12-year-old franchise, and by extension, the entire sub-genre. Wipeout Pulse packs a dozen new racetracks, each with a white and black (forward and reverse) variation and each complete with winding paths, the occasional (appreciated) straightaway and the requisite speed boost pads and weapon pick-ups.